Iran says won't bow to sanctions over atomic work
President Ahmadinejad quoted as saying Iran 'won't retreat one step', accuses enemes of 'psychological war'
Iran will not be pushed by sanctions to suspend work on its disputed nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday, two days after six world powers met to discuss Iran's defiance of UN demands.
Senior officials from the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany met in Berlin on Thursday to discuss Iran's refusal to halt its uranium enrichment work, as demanded by the UN Security Council.
Some diplomats said the Americans had been eager to discuss possible language for a new sanctions resolution during the Berlin talks.
" ... Without even retreating one step or giving in to sanctions, threats and the psychological war of Islamic Iran's enemies, we will move on the path of (nuclear) progress," the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
"We are at the last stage of becoming 'nuclearized' and nuclearization means proving that Iran is worthy of becoming a free, independent and honourable model for other nations," Mehr quoted Ahmadinejad as telling a group of students.
He did not say what the final stage was but Iran has been pressing ahead with plans to expand its nuclear work to produce its own fuel for a planned network of atomic power plants, although the first such plant is still under construction.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani also stressed on Friday that Tehran would not stop its atomic activities and said Western powers should not "waste their time". Such sentiments have also been echoed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Larijani is expected to meet the European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana later in May to resume talks on Iran's nuclear program though the exact place and date have not been announced.
